After creating a custom survey or list, users get “Access Denied” error when trying to complete. The error is received when clicking on “Next” if branching is enabled, or when clicking on “Finish” if branching is not enabled. The user has minimum of “contribute” access on the list, but still receives “Access Denied” error.

This error is received when the user does not have permission to create or edit responses. To resolve, click on Settings > Survey Settings > Advanced Settings, then under Create and Edit Access select Create responses and edit responses that were created by the user. The user should now be able to complete the survey without receiving the Access Denied error.

I received this error when I tried to browse to a newly created SharePoint 2010 site. Other newly created sites were responding as expected – only one was throwing this error. Searching the error returned several hits that were related to detaching and reattaching a database and a few other more complicated situations, but none that I could find were about the error on a newly created site.

After taking a looking in Central Admin, I realized that I had not created a top level site for this particular web app. That was the problem. After creating the top level web app, the site responded as expected.

I realize this was a simple issue to resolve, but the lack of any hits regarding the error with a new site prompted me to do a blog entry to possibly save someone else some time. So, if your site is a newly created one and you get this error, make sure your top level site exists. If it does and you’re getting the error, you can continue on with the other recommendations for the more complicated issues.

The unattended service account is one that I did NOT find mentioned in the documentation for initial setup and configuration of SharePoint 2010 nor is it mentioned in some of the SharePoint 2010 admin books that I have. It was not until setting up some of the Service Applications that I came across the need for this account.

By definition from Microsoft the unattended service account is:

A single shared user account that is used to access all data sources. This is a low privileged domain account stored in the Secure Store Service. In establishing your unattended service account, first determine if this account has the proper access to the data sources that will be required in the Dashboard.

It is used by the Secure Store to provide credentials for the Business Intelligence service applications – Performance Point, Excel Services, and Visio Services.

The Secure Store provides access to data outside SharePoint Server 2010 (for example, SQL Server data) by impersonating the credentials of the user attempting to access the data. The unattended service account credentials are not cached globally. They are retrieved from the Secure Store only when needed.

More specific information on the unattended service account and the various BI service applications can be found at the links below.

You have a SharePoint 2010 site that was migrated by the database upgrade method from MOSS 2007. The site has several lists and libraries. You open the site in SharePoint Designer 2010, click on List and Libraries in the left navigation, and instead of seeing all of your list and libraries, you get a message saying “No items to display”. When opening the Lists and Libraries of sites created in SharePoint 2010 you do not receive this message.

Most answers that I found online to this problem indicated a hotfix was needed for the server. This may be true if you are getting the “No items to display” message on all of your sites, regardless of whether they were upgraded or created in SharePoint 2010. My servers already had the hotfix and I was only getting the message on one upgraded site. Other site’s Lists and Libraries opened fine in SharePoint Designer 2010.

I consulted my friend Woody Windischman (co-author of Beginning SharePoint Designer 2010) and he suggested checking the Site Collection Administrators on the upgraded site collection since it was upgraded from MOSS 2007. I checked and the Site Collection Admins were different than the empty top level site and other sites that I was not having problems with. I changed the Site Collection Admin to the SP2010 accounts and still got the error when trying to access Lists and Libraries in SPD2010.

Woody also suggested that the original root collection of the site might by blocked by the default one in the new web application, so I tried deleting and recreating the top level root site – everything started working!

Thanks for all your help Woody! Woody has a lot of great info on his SharePoint blog, The Sanity Point. You can also follow him on Twitter, @woodywindy, and on FaceBook, for lots of helpful SharePoint info.

What an exciting week! Seeing all the new features of SharePoint 2010 was good, but getting to meet so many new friends was the best part of the trip. I made a point to try and meet as many of my Twitter and Facebook friends as possible. It’s so nice to meet in person after becoming online friends. All of them are so willing to share their knowledge.

One of the highlights of the week was being invited to Jeff Jones (@spjeff) and his lovely bride Emily’s wedding. It was held at the Viva Las Vegas Wedding Chapel and officiated by Elvis. Jeff and Emily are an adorable couple and I was thrilled to be part of their special day.

And talk about SharePoint 2010 information overload!!…I attended as many sessions as I could. They were so many great offerings but no way to go to them all. Thankfully Microsoft will be making all of the sessions available on line for conference attendees.

Many people sent Twitter updates during the sessions. This gave others a glimpse of what was going on in the sessions they couldn’t make. There were almost 20,000 tweets sent during the conference that tagged #SPC09. I’m sure post conference tweeting will put the number over 20k. That is amazing! There were also live blog streams and video streams.

Right now I’m sitting at the airport waiting for my plane. I’ve had a great time, but ready to get home. Viva Las Vegas!